The True Endgame

He even sees Ca.s.siel looking over at the two playing every now and then.

She glares at him every single time she catches him catching her.

Well, as long as Serra doesn"t try throwing the b.a.l.l.s around, it shouldn"t be a problem. He"s sure she knows better than to try and toss and bounce a cannonball.

Of course, while Serra may know that, it doesn"t stop Rock from managing to coincidentally roll a ball into the back room and down the steps into the deck below.

Fenrir cringes with every crash the cannonball makes as it falls down the steps.

Serra looks at him, expecting to be scolded, but she"s just too cute. "Just be more careful and try to stop her from rolling any back there, alright?" he says. That"s all the scolding she needs.

She smiles and nods before heading below deck to retrieve Rock and the cannonball.

When Rock is finally all tuckered out and panting from the intense play session, Serra bothers Fenrir for something to do by tugging on the back of his leather vest as he stares out to the ocean.

"What"s up?" Fenrir asks.

"I"m bored," Serra says.

Fortunately for her, he already has an idea that he"s been playing around with.

"You like shooting the cannons, right?"

She nods.

"Then let"s get you some more target practice, though I don"t think you need much of it with how awesome your shots were the other night."

A light red takes to her cheeks alongside a smile.

They move over to the cannons. With the attack on Coastedge being over, the cannons have been placed back in their original positions to have three on each side of the ship rather than having all six on one side.

"See that island coming up?" Fenrir asks, pointing at a small desert island off the starboard side of the ship. "Try hitting that. It"s pretty small, and we"ve got a good speed here, so you"ll have to try and time the fuse to shoot at the right moment."

Serra looks serious and hurries to load the cannons. Fenrir was planning on helping her with the loading parts, but she seems to have it all under control.

She must really like pirate movies if she can do all of this so effortlessly.

They steadily approach the island. Serra stands directly behind the first cannon, looking over to the island and waiting for the perfect time to light the fuse.

Fenrir wants to tell her to light it now, but he lets her choose the right time.

The longer she waits, the harder it is to resist telling her to hurry and light the fuse.

She finally lights it, and then moves to the next cannon to light that one"s fuse, and then lights the third cannon.

A few seconds later and the cannons go off one after another! Cannonb.a.l.l.s are propelled by the blasts over to the island.

Each cannonball tears right through the center of the island, knocking down several of the thin palm trees before splashing into the ocean on the other side of the island.

"You… shot right through the center of it. Great job," Fenrir praises her.

He"s glad he held his tongue and didn"t tell her when to fire. She probably would have missed if he did.

Serra looks up at him with a proud smile. He pats the top of her head a little bit as a reward, making her smile even more.

Fenrir feels like he"s being glared at.

When he looks around, he sees Rock taking a nap and Ca.s.siel turned around and trying to busy herself with something.

Weird.

He turns back around to face Serra.

"Alright, those were some great shots. Think you can do it again? I think we can afford to spare a few more shots, plus we can count this as training. You"ll be sinking enemy ships in no time!" Fenrir says.

Serra looks excited, nodding her head as she gets to work reloading the cannons.

"Hey, have you felt like you"ve – this is hard to explain, but have you felt like an internal sense of accomplishment by shooting cannons?" He has no idea how else to describe that sense of learning a skill.

"Yeah. I felt it a couple times the other night, and I just felt it again now," she says as she loads the cannons. It looks like she"s loading them faster than before. "Just felt it again."

Going by that, Fenrir comes to the conclusion that she"s learning skills for both firing and loading cannons. He wonders whether they count as a sort of siege weapon operating skill, or if they are specific to cannons.

Two more volleys are fired at small islands as they pa.s.s by. Fenrir is surprised that Rock is able to sleep through the cannon blasts, and he feels a jealous glare every single time he praises Serra by patting her head. Yet, every single time he looks around, he cannot find whomever or whatever is glaring at him.

Not wanting to shoot all of their supplies, Fenrir puts a stop to Serra"s explosive fun. She"s disappointed at first, but she understands.

"I had no idea you were going to love shooting cannons so much," he says. "You also like fishing more than I thought you would."

"I – I like making hard things shoot their loads," Serra says.

"Yeah, I can see that."

Wait.

Wait one d.a.m.n second.

What did she just say?

He looks down at her. She"s looking away and quietly whistling.

He must have been hearing things.

Wait, this wouldn"t be the first time that he"s thought she"s said or done something s.e.xually suggestive. Is she – is she actually a pervert?

His eyes narrow as he looks at her.

"What did you just say?" he asks.

"Shooting cannons is fun," she answers.

"Right. I must have misheard you."

Serra looks up at him. "Did you?" she asks. The look in her eyes tells him that he didn"t actually mishear her.

His virgin self doesn"t know how to handle this situation. Every girl he"s ever dated, all of which were part of online and long-distance relationships, was a prude that never even gave him a single tease of anything s.e.xual. Yet, now when he looks at Serra, he feels like he"s being teased.

He realizes that he"s blushing and turns away.

Normally, this is when he would try to run away as his virgin self doesn"t know how to handle such situations.

But if he always does that every time he ever gets teased by a girl, he"s going to remain a virgin forever.

He"s got to man up and learn how to stand his ground. If he can stare down and s.h.i.t talk the biggest bada.s.ses and strongest players of MMOs to their faces, he can try to tease a girl back.

Fenrir takes a deep breath and tries thinking of the smoothest thing that he can flirt back with.

He doesn"t want to be like the annoying, virgin protagonists of the harem anime he loves watching. Those guys always get girls making obvious advancements, but never actually do anything. They just stay virgin and dense. Sure, this isn"t an anime, and it isn"t like he"s some protagonist of a harem, but he can"t help but compare himself to those guys if he runs away here.

It"s time to embrace his inner hentai protagonist.

"I"ve got a cannon with a full load that you can shoot," Fenrir says, staring her right in the eyes as he says it.

Oh.

Oh G.o.d.

He instantly regrets it.

He"s internally cringing and wants nothing more than to jump overboard to be devoured by sharks. He deserves it for that horrible, cringe-inducing, cheesy pickup line.

But, before he can turn himself into a meal for a sea monster, he sees Serra blushing and giggling.

"Does it have an explosive finish?" she asks.

"The harder you… light my cannon, the more explosive the finish is. It can shoot a lot pretty far," he teases back. As internally cringe-inducing his attempt at flirting is, it makes them both laugh.

"Do you get lots of target practice shooting it?" she asks back, now giggling at her own words.

"I do. Maybe I"ll take you target shooting sometime," he replies.

Fenrir doesn"t even think they"re flirting at this point. This is more like just being silly and saying the cheesiest s.e.xual innuendos that they can think of. It"s similar to what he does with Oleander whenever they"re s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around.

Yet, unlike with Oleander, this conversation is actually arousing.

Going by the flushed look on her cheeks, he can"t help but think she"s feeling the same way despite how horrible he is at this.

"What"s so funny? You two have been over here giggling for a minute now," Ca.s.siel asks.

The fact that they both blush and look surprised by her interruption causes her to raise a suspicious eyebrow.

Fenrir considers saying that they"re just telling some stupid jokes back and forth to one another to try and cover it up, but he doesn"t want to do that. One, he doesn"t want to lie. Two, he feels like that might potentially hurt Serra"s feelings if he tries to cover it up. Three, why try to cover something up that he doesn"t regret doing?

"I think we"re seeing who has the cheesiest pickup line," he explains.

Ca.s.siel has an unexpected reaction.

She looks interested.

"This customer at work once asked me, "hey, do the White Russians here have your own milk in them?" Does that count? I have to listen to horrible lines like that every day," Ca.s.siel says.

Serra has the most difficulty between her and Fenrir to not overly giggle. He figures that she must really like horrible pickup lines.

He"ll have to look some up on the internet to memorize for her.

Whereas before, Fenrir and Serra were making suggestive lines at each other, all three of them are now thinking up whatever random cheesy pickup lines that they can. Though, all of Ca.s.siel"s are just lines that she has heard people try using on her before.

"What"s the worst pickup line a b.a.s.t.a.r.d ever used on you?" Ca.s.siel asks Serra.

"One time a guy told me that he has a cannon I can shoot since he knew I like pirates," Serra answers, flashing a quick look at Fenrir.

He feels personally attacked, but it"s still funny enough to make him laugh. "Whoever he is, he sounds really bad at flirting," he says.

"Yeah, that was really bad even by drunken customer standards," Ca.s.siel says.

Now he feels really personally attacked. He knew it was bad, but even worse than what Ca.s.siel was telling them?

When the conversation ends, Ca.s.siel explains that she has to log off to get ready for work. They say their goodbyes. Only Serra and Fenrir are left.

Given that they have nothing better to do than sailing and waiting to reach the city, the two just sit around and talk. They talk about life, they talk about any interesting movies they"ve seen, video games, he tells her some stories about the old Divine Brigade, she tells him what it"s like growing up deaf, they have an argument over whether a grizzly bear or a polar bear would win in a fight, and they somehow manage to slip back into s.e.xually suggestive flirting.

Fenrir feels like there is a growing s.e.xual tension between them. It doesn"t help that she"s still hardly dressed, having only the bark armor he made her covering up her slender figure. They probably should have taken some more clothes from the people they killed in Coastedge.

His heart is starting to hurt from how much he likes Serra. She is already far better than every girl he has ever dated, and he feels way happier with her as well. She"s cute, likes spending time with him, has great hips that he wants to hold onto, and isn"t a complete prude like his exes were. Just the fact that she"s even slightly s.e.xually forward is enough for him to fall for her.

Wait, doesn"t that make him really virgin?

Shoving that concern aside, Fenrir has to pause their flirting and teasing so that he can steer the ship out of the way from hitting a sea stack.

They continue talking about various topics and learning more about one another.

It"s nice to just sit back on a ship sailing the ocean to have a casual conversation. As fun as the suggestive and teasing parts are, even just talking to her casually is tons of fun.

The sun finally reaches the ocean to the west.

They missed sunset the first night they played, but he won"t let them miss it again.

Fenrir and Serra walk over to the side of the ship facing the sunset.

"Isn"t that beautiful? I"d love to see this in real life someday," Fenrir says.

Serra is silent.

When he looks down at her, he sees wide eyes full of amazement at what she is seeing. She looks completely enthralled by the setting sun.

He can"t blame her.

Would… would it be a good idea to…

Would there be a better time than now to try this?

What if she reacts negatively? Couldn"t it completely screw up the friendship they have going on? The last thing he wants to do is mess up a friendship only a few days old.

It"s time to embrace his inner shoujo main love interest.

Stepping closer to her, he wraps his right arm around her shoulders and gently pulls her against his side.

Every last ounce of confidence was used to do this. He doesn"t have the courage to look down and see her reaction.
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Instead of seeing her reaction, he feels it.

She leans into him and rests her head on his side.

Each day for the remainder of the voyage is the same.

They eat the food and drink the water from the hull, Rock is fed small cannonb.a.l.l.s to keep her healthy, they all play whatever games they can think of from word a.s.sociation games to "would you rather," and take shifts steering the ship. Bonekraka is the only one who doesn"t ever log on during this time. Oleander, Fenrir, and Serra are the three who take turns steering. It is mainly left to Oleander.

Fenrir and Serra are physically closer whenever they are alone. Each time they watch the sunset together, they are either leaning against one another or holding hands.

He has no idea what their relationship is. It isn"t something they talk about.

As for Ca.s.siel, she and Fenrir have sparring sessions every day.

She may have warned him against not using a weapon at first, but she doesn"t do that anymore. If anything, she looks disappointed the few times he does use a sword instead of his hands.

He figures that she"s getting more and more frustrated after their practice fights due to him slowly catching up and doing better against her every time.

Serra can tell what Ca.s.siel is feeling but decides to stay out of it. She finds it fun watching Fenrir be clueless about Ca.s.siel"s s.e.xual frustration every time he pins her either against the mast or down on the deck.

Besides, if Serra has to suffer from it, so does Ca.s.siel!

It takes them a few days to reach the port city of Port Tugator.

A fleet of hundreds of ships is docked outside of the city"s main harbors.

The city itself is built within a ma.s.sive cove. At the entrance to the cove is a tall, round tower with dozens of large cannons on each floor of it pointed out in every direction away from the cove. Fenrir is able to count at least one hundred cannons sticking out from the tower by a quick look. He doubts that it is that effective, but the rule of cool makes up for it.

Besides, as ineffective as the tower may or may not be against any proper naval invasion, the cliffs surrounding the cove feature even more coastal batteries ready to fire on any threats. Some of the cannons that he spots sticking out over the cliffs are huge. They remind him of the old cannons from World War II era battleships.

Between the fleet of ships, coastal artillery, and the tower of cannons, any naval force that gets anywhere near this city is going to be utterly decimated.

Of course, Fenrir being Fenrir, he can"t help but think up potential plans on how to get past all of these defenses should he ever need to.

The entire crew of The s...o...b..ll is online at once as Oleander pulls the ship into port. He docks it at the first open pier that he can find where they are allowed to. It helps that the city"s government had the good idea of putting up huge signs saying "Guest Parking" by some of the piers. Sure, it might take away from the seriousness of pulling into a huge and epic pirate city, but it"s too helpful for them to complain about.

Fenrir and Bonekraka tie the ship to the dock. Rock is the first one to excitedly run off of the ship and onto the pier.

"We"re finally here! Just look around – this place is awesome. I bet you feel at home here, Serra," Fenrir says. When he looks back at her, her eyes might as well be shining as brightly as stars from how excited she looks.

Ca.s.siel is less impressed. "Great, now I get to be surrounded by drunken wannabe pirates both at work and in-game," she groans.

"I want to see bar," Bonekraka says.

"Same! I want to hang out with a bunch of big, burly pirate men," Oleander says, clinging to Bonekraka"s arm. He gets shaken off almost immediately.

"Alright, well, just remember where we"re docked, and we can all meet back up here later after exploring a bit. Sound good?" Fenrir asks them. There aren"t any complaints.

"Hey, you entering the fishing tourney?" a crewmember from the ship docked across from them asks a man on the pier.

Fenrir"s ears perk up.

Did somebody say fishing tournament?